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This blog was created for you to enjoy for personal use only. Unfortunately, I have to put this big fat copyright on here because people are not always honest. Please do not make and sell, redistribute, or enter in a contest anything from this blog. Please LINK back here, if you post an idea from here. I would love to see what you created!{Selling creations you made from tutorials on here is stealing. Using my photos without permission and not linking back to me is also stealing.}Please give credit where credit is due, and I will too. Let's support each other instead of stealing from each other. Thank you!

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Monday, September 7, 2009

It's the post many of you have been waiting for :) I had to work out lots of things w/ this and so thanks for your patience. AS ALWAYS- this is for personal use only☻ which means no selling/redistribution, entering contests, etc.(In case you are wondering- I spelled it cozie instead of cozy...just trying to be original-since I have not seen this anywhere-and I have looked ☻) I am selling some in my etsy shop, if you would rather buy one. (more items coming soon) AND...I will sell you a kit too-with everything cut and ready to go. With this post, I am also doing a little give-a-way! Details at the end of post ☻

Let's Get Started:

Here is what you need :ALL SEAM ALLOWANCES ARE 1/4 inch.

Step one: prepare the road piece

1. Iron the interfacing onto the back (wrong side) of the black fabric. I used flannel, or you could cotton quilting fabric for the road. You could also use felt, but I really liked the flannel and cotton look and feel. Felt doesn't seem to wash as well, if you plan on washing this.

2. Next cut your 10 inch strip of yellow felt into 4 equal pieces. Cut your Wonder Under to match these pieces. Space evenly on the black fabric- the right side-(not the interfacing side) down the middle of the fabric. TIP: To get your pieces on evenly and easily, iron your road piece in 1/2 lengthwise to make a crease. Place the road lines right on the crease and they will be in the middle of the road now. ☻

With Wonder Under you don't have to sew. You can iron it in between the road and the yellow fabric, and it will fuse the two fabrics together. You can sew around the yellow lines too, if you want to reinforce them. Either way- your choice- but the Wonder Under really does keep it on.

Once your road is finished, set it aside for now.

Step Two: Prepare the pocket piece

(sorry different fabric here:))

1. The car piece that is 18 1/2 inches by 9 inches will be your pocket. Fold it in 1/2 and iron. Your pocket front will now be double thickness with the fold at the top of the pocket.

2. Place this piece with your contrasting fabric, lining up the raw edges. (The road will be sewn on the opposite edge of this contrasting fabric piece. )

3. Mark and pin the pocket piece every 3 inches, leaving an extra 1/4 inch on both ends of the pocket piece for seam allowances. So you will have 3 and 1/4 inches on the two ends, and all the pins in between will be every 3 inches. If it isn't exact, don't worry about it. It will still work and still fit cars- even if one pocket is a little too small or too big.

4. Once you have that all pinned, you are ready to sew the pocket on. This is important: When sewing the pockets, make sure to over stitch onto the backing piece, and to double stitch. So stitch the lines, making sure to back stitch on both ends, and then go back over and stitch the lines again. This reinforces the pockets since little cars and hands will be going in and out of the pockets often...☻

Put your pocket piece aside. Pick up your road piece.

NEXT- Attach ribbon closure.

The ribbon attaches right where the lines in the road are at. So fold your ribbon in 1/2 and sew it and back stitch it right on the edge of the road so that it is even with the yellow road lines.

NOW we are going to attach our road to our pocket piece.
With right sides together, sew the long side of the pocket piece to the long edge of the road piece.

You are almost finished!

Now let's attach the backing:

1. Placing right sides together, place the large car piece (18 1/2 inches by 12) on top of the pocket and road piece you just sewed. Pin all edges together. Sew 1/4 inch all the way around, leaving 3-4 inches open along the long edge of the road side. Make sure to catch all layers, but make sure you don't catch the end of the ribbon in your seams. Make sure you catch the end of the ribbon you already sewed on inside of your seam.

Trim your seams. Turn right side out. Press. Now you are ready to top stitch. When top stitching, sew opening closed. Top stitch all the way around the edge of the road, close to the edge, and outside edge of the pocket. I top stitched along the top edge of the pocket backing too, so that on the backing, there are two lines down the center, and stitching all the way around the edge.

AND now you are done!

Please let me know if this makes sense or if you have any questions. I had my husband help me with this, and he really wanted me to be specific, so I hope I was. ☻

Fill it up with cars, and enjoy your new toy!!

If you make one of these, will you please leave me a comment and link it to this post? thanks! I would love to see yours!

Leave a comment if you have any questions and I'll comment back to you with the answer.

AND NOW FOR A LITTLE GIVE-A -WAY!!

In my etsy shop, I am selling already made ones, and kits. With this post, I am giving away a kit that includes all the pieces you need to make your own. I am also giving one away made.

♥ ☻♥ ☻ ♥ ☻ ♥

Leave me a comment if you want to enter! And we'll have the give-a-way end Thursday of this week.

***THIS GIVE-A-WAY is now CLOSED***

Here is what you can do if you would like some EXTRAENTRIES:

(make sure to tell me in your comment what you did for extra entries)

*Followers- 5 extra

*Add Little Gems Button to your blog-5 extra... on the left-I'm still working on the code but there is a button you can add for now (it may need some fixin' up --later ;))

Yes I can ship to the UK. How I do shipping: once I know where the item is going, I figure out what it will cost me to ship- and you pay it- so if you don't mind paying for shipping, I don't mind shipping it anywhere ;)

That is so cute. I know several little guys who would love one so I'd love to win it! But I'm so excited that you posted a tutorial in case I don't win. I don't sew anything, but I might be able to follow your step-by-step instructions. :)

Thanks for your awesome car cozy tutorial. Love, love, love it! I can't wait to try it out and make a few for my own mini car enthusiasts. I posted a little blurb and link to your tutorial on Otterhop.com:

Oh, my! This is awesome...so simple and yet, I never would have thought of it on my own. I actually made my kids some fabric roads out of denim last year, but attaching them to something like this would make them a lot more useful for when we're on the go. My son LOVES cars and they're always getting dropped when we go places. I'll add this to my list of projects to do at http://helpinglittlehands.blogspot.com/ and when I get around to making and posting about them, I'll be sure to link up to you. Thanks! Polly :)

a HUGE thank you for posting a tutorial for this! i just finished making one. 8 more to go before christmas :) here's mine... http://jarenandkathryngilbert.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducing-car-cozie.html

Thank you for the idea and the tutorial! I took the idea and ran with it!!! Here is what I ended up with as well as an idea or two for ones in the future! http://urbanpioneerwoman.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-awesome-homemade-gift-ideafor.html

these are so cool. I just happened upon your tutorial. Wish I would have seen how to make em earlier, I just bought 4 from a little ole lady here in Jacksonville at a craft show this past weekend. She named hers Carages. I guess it a take on cars and garages. Anyway, was looking for a tutorial to make one more. Thank you.

I just finished making 2 of these for my 2 boys. They are going to make great Christmas gifts and I can't wait to keep them in the diaper bag...I know it will always keep them busy, without me having to dig around finding cars! Thank you for the awesome tutorial--it made it so easy to make these!!

Hi - I follow your blog and love it! My sister and I have recently started a new blog featuring tutorials, recipes, and ideas from some of our favorite sites. You were one of the blogs we picked for our first features! If you follow this link http://ificould-ificould.blogspot.com/p/featured-sites.html it will take you to a page where you can grab a button saying you were featured on if i could...

Thank you so much for sharing this! I just made one - my very first sewing project. I bought a sewing machine last year, but have been very nervous to get started. But I feel much more confident now that I have made the car cozie and know that I could do more! It's lovely to be able to make and create! Thanks again!

These are so cute! I love looking at all the variations with the car caddy!I made a car caddy recently (based on Jill's tute) and had so much fun with it. Even better, my son plays with it regularly, which makes all the effort totally worth it. I think I'm going to have to try making one like yours soon just for the fun of it. I love the fabrics you used!

Hi, Sharla! I love this project; thanks so much for taking the time to share the tutorial. I just linked to this at Sewing and Growing. I tried to post the link below, but I had trouble...sorry, i am new to blogging and trying to figure it all out. Thanks again for this tut!

Thank you for this tutorial. I just finished making one and it came out different than yours. Instead of the backing fabric showing in-between the road and pocket like yours is, the backing part and opening of the pocket is on the edge instead of the middle. I rarely sew and so I'm sure I made a mistake somewhere. It won't change the usefulness of it, in fact I'm quite pleased with my accomplishment. But I have read and re-read the instructions and can't figure out what I did wrong. I don't have pictures up on my blog yet but I will later today. If you could look at it and tell me where I messed up, that would be fantastic.

This project was easy to make and the results are fantastic! I've received a lot of compliments on this car cozy and have made some as gifts for my friends kids. My son loves to play with his and it is a great, QUITE, activity that he can pull out and play with at church when he starts to get really antsy. I ran into a couple of snags the first time I made this cozy. When getting supplies off of the list of materials, it listed yellow flannel but in the directions it stated yellow felt, which made more sense when I actually got to that part. Also, it wasn't really clear how to attach the ribbon, so the first car cozy I had attached the ribbon to both sides, which turned out wrong but I figured out what went wrong and fixed it on the next one I made. Overall, fantastic project. Fast and easy to make and passed my little critics test!

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